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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26802208">My Job Is To Take Care Of You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/michals/pseuds/michals'>michals</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Umbrella Academy (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ben the Plant is also a character, Gen, Past Character Death, Post-Apocalypse, Survival, very vague references to past suicidal ideation and self harm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:53:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>13,232</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26802208</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/michals/pseuds/michals</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Luther avoids the apocalypse, now he needs to make sure he and Five survive the aftermath. </p>
<p>From this inspiring prompt from 7-umbrellas: </p>
<p>"...since Five never mentions the moon being destroyed in the apocalypse he lived through, we can assume that that didn’t happen so- AU where the message about their Father’s funeral doesn’t go through to Luther the first time around and so, he doesn’t make his way down to earth until after he sees a giant explosion and the whole planet burning. In disbelief he makes his way down to earth, because that can’t be true. Everyone is still okay, right? He gets there and everything is in ruins. No one is around. He runs to the academy to find no one until he hears a small, broken voice from behind him. A voice he hasn’t heard since he was 13. “Who are you?” He turns around and is face to face with his 13 year old brother who looks just as terrified as he feels. “Five?”"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Number Five | The Boy &amp; Luther Hargreeves</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>98</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>365</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>My Job Is To Take Care Of You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>All credit for this idea belongs to 7-umbrellas over on Tumblr. Thank you for letting me post this fic based on one of your many cool AU ideas, I hope I did it justice!</p>
<p>Here's the original post: https://7-umbrellas.tumblr.com/post/630448686384709632/okay-but-since-five-never-mentions-the-moon-being</p>
<p>Title's from The Road by McCarthy because in all my years I've never once figured out how to title my stuff.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p>
<p>He can’t get a signal and that’s the first bad sign. No one answers his transmissions, not even when he sends an SOS in desperation. His machines don’t pick up anything coming from Earth, even the international wavelengths are deathly quiet. Luther didn’t think it was possible to feel more alone than he already did.</p>
<p>He’s going crazy, that has to be it. It took four years for it to happen but Luther’s ready to accept it. There’s no way the explosion was real, no way he watched the smoke and ash radiate out across the world in waves, setting off fires visible from even 200,000 miles away. There’s no way he can accept that he just watched the end of the world.</p>
<p>It takes nearly 40 hours of constant adjustments and equations and searching but he finally gets something. A signal just strong enough to set a course home. He doesn’t have much to pack, his life up here has been small and contained. He takes three notebooks that he hasn’t filled up yet. He almost doesn’t bring Ben, the plant he started growing on the first day after he landed. It’s never been out of this atmosphere, and if there air down there is as toxic as it looks it won’t survive very long. But Luther can’t just leave him behind.</p>
<p>Just before he goes he hesitates. What if it is completely uninhabitable? What if there really isn’t anything left? No<em> one </em>left? He’ll starve up here but at least he’ll only be as alone as he has been. Might be better than to find himself as truly alone as anyone can be. He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as he fires up the lander. Still no signal, no voices, no signs of life when he meets up with the orbiting rocket and steers it towards Earth.</p>
<p>The touchdown outside Canaveral is successful but he only manages it by the skin of his teeth. He has to swim out of the bay from his capsule with a bruised shoulder and what he hopes isn’t a concussion. He gets to shore and looks out into ruin.</p>
<p>The city is empty, every building barely more than rubble, nothing stands taller than seven feet. There’s not a living soul in sight. He can feel himself shaking head to toe as he searches, he feels dizzy and his legs feel heavy. But he keeps walking.</p>
<p>He can’t find a vehicle in one piece enough to drive but he finds stores with handfuls of cans of food, some better built basements with a bag of something or other. It’s never enough but he’s gotten used to being hungry. Bless having super durability, he supposes. The air is thick and cold from the lingering ash and he coughs up soot six times a day. He doesn’t know how Ben the plant is still alive. He’s tired and sore and he still hasn’t seen a single other person even after several days.</p>
<p>Logic and his better sense tell him that it’s stupid and pointless, that the mansion will be as destroyed as the rest of the world. That there’s no way dad and Pogo and Grace survived. That…anyone else survived. But he needs to see, he needs to know.</p>
<p>He rests for a night outside Greensboro, North Carolina and in a broken down house with barely a ceiling to keep him covered when he sees himself in a mirror for the first time in four years. He didn’t have one on the moon, couldn’t stand the thought of it. It was bad enough that he had to walk around like this, feel the weight and awkwardness of his body, look down at his inhuman hands, he didn’t need to look at it. But in the morning he finds a piece of glass and some still water and cuts off his scraggly beard and greasy hair. At least if he comes across another mirror he’ll look a little more like himself.</p>
<p>It takes almost two weeks for him to walk into the city limits and make his way through even more wreckage. He feels like a homing pigeon (he’d always wanted one but dad thought it was useless), and some preternatural ability is guiding him. There’s nothing to see and his heart is breaking with every step.</p>
<p>There’s nothing left. Of course there isn’t. He walks what hallways he can, stepping over broken walls and shattered statues and vases. The upper floors have collapsed but he knows where he is as he goes. He lived in this house his whole life, he knows his way around it even through the devastation.</p>
<p>He finds a fragment of a record, and he has to sit down. He runs his thumb over the grooves and maybe he’s just too tired and hungry and dehydrated but it almost makes him laugh. He’d always been so careful with them, he’d never chipped a single one.</p>
<p>“Hey!” A voice calls out and Luther startles. “Who are you?”</p>
<p>Luther spins and finds a boy standing in a crumbling doorway, wide eyed and apprehensive. He looks dirty and unkempt, eyes bloodshot and hands scraped. Luther’s glad he’s sitting because he would hit the ground if he wasn’t.</p>
<p>“Five?” He asks and his voice comes out scratchy after days of breathing in dust.</p>
<p>Five’s brow furrows and his shoulders tighten. He narrows his eyes and takes a tentative step forward. “How do you know my name?”</p>
<p>And Luther does laugh then, a weak chuckle bubbling out of his chest. He has gone crazy. By some miracle he wasn’t entirely before but two weeks of wandering around Armageddon definitely tipped him over the edge. There’s no way…<em>no way</em> in Hell that he’s staring at Five, the brother he lost 17 years ago, looking exactly like he did when he stormed out of the house that day.</p>
<p>“Five,” Luther says again even though he’s sure he’s talking to a hallucination now, “It’s me, it’s Number O- It’s Luther.”</p>
<p>Five’s face changes to confused shock but he takes another step, and another, until he’s just a couple feet away. He searches Luther’s face for a desperate second and his eyes go wide again with recognition and he shouts, “Luther!” and throws himself in his arms.</p>
<p>He’s real. Five’s real. Luther wraps his arms around him and holds him as tight as he dares. He doesn’t know how it’s even possible but he’s actually here in the ruins of their family home, alive.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Over a shoddy fire Five’s kept burning in what was once the library he tells Luther as much as he can. That he jumped too far and ended up here and can’t figure out how to get back. That technically he’d only just seen Luther – 13 year old Luther – two weeks ago. Luther and the rest of their family.</p>
<p>“The others?” Luther dares to ask, and Five looks at the ground when he answers.</p>
<p>“Didn’t make it.”</p>
<p>It shouldn’t hurt as bad as it does. Luther hasn’t seen any of his siblings for almost as long as Five’s been missing. They hadn’t left on great terms, even Allison, who just couldn’t understand why he had to stay. And he’s had two weeks of his mind telling him to stop hoping, but still it hurts so much worse than he could imagine. He can’t believe he stayed.</p>
<p>“You were on the moon?” Five asks, wrinkling his dirty nose incredulously.</p>
<p>“Is that hard to believe?” Luther asks with a cocked eyebrow.</p>
<p>Five gives an exaggerated shrug and Luther can’t get over the fact that he’s still so young. It’s been so many years but Five’s still the kid Luther remembers.</p>
<p>“What’s it like anyway?” Five asks, huddling closer to the fire. There’s plenty of other questions that need answering, but Luther’s so tired he’s happy if they can wait.</p>
<p>The first answer he thinks of is ‘lonely’, but he can’t bear to say it. “Cold.”</p>
<p>Five shivers then as if the word triggers it. Luther doesn’t think twice to tug off the flight jacket he’s still wearing and leaning over to wrap around his shoulders. Five looks like he hasn’t eaten in days. Luther hasn’t either but at least that’s not new. Five opens his mouth as if to say something but stops when he notices Luther’s body with the jacket gone.</p>
<p>Luther sighs. “I’ll tell you later.” Five’s eyebrows are still knit together but after a moment he nods. “You should sleep.”</p>
<p>Luther stays awake to keep the fire going with torn up books from their childhood while Five curls up at his side.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The piles of dirt aren’t neat and obviously not that deep. Luther hates that Five had to do it, had to deal with something so terrible as burying his siblings’ bodies, but a selfish part of him is glad he doesn’t have to see them. On larger bits of rubble are names written in soot: ‘Diego’, ‘Allison’, ‘Klaus’.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t just leave them out there like that,” Five says next to him, staring at the names. “I couldn’t find you, or Vanya. I just assumed…”</p>
<p>Assumed there wasn’t anything left to bury. Luther tentatively reaches out and puts his hand on Five’s shoulder. They weren’t close growing up, more ‘brothers-in-arms’ than the kind that play and laugh with each other. The kind that share secrets and inside jokes. Five leans in against his hand.</p>
<p>“I saw a statue, with a plaque,” Five says, and looks up at him. “It looked like it could’ve been…Ben.”</p>
<p>Luther’s heart sinks (as if it could get any lower). “Yeah,” he says, has to clear his throat. “He died, couple years ago on a mission.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t say more, doesn’t say how he should have stopped it, that Luther still blames himself for it every day. How that more than anything splintered their family apart. Five looks at him with questions in his eyes but the words are stuck in Luther’s throat. Later, he promises, he’ll tell Five everything later.</p>
<p>Right now they need to eat. There’d been enough cans and preserves in the cellar of the house for Five to live on for a couple days and he argues when Luther tells him to finish off what’s left.</p>
<p>“We have to ration!” he snips, hands on his hips. Luther can’t help the huff of laughter he gives.</p>
<p>“We’ll find more. You need to eat.”</p>
<p>“You’re bigger than me, you eat.”</p>
<p>“I’m bigger <em>and</em> older, which means I’m in charge so you have to do what I say.”</p>
<p>Five <em>hates </em>this idea.</p>
<p>Luther does win in the end and Five grumbles but he devours three cans of soup and eats two jars of jam straight. Luther picks through the house for whatever might be both useful and intact. He still knows every corner and cabinet in this house, because of course he does. He barely ever left. He lifts up a shelf in the laundry room and sees a flash of red nailpolish and he drops it before he has to uncover the body of his mom. He puts his hand over his mouth so Five won’t hear and  chokes back tears.</p>
<p>She’d been there for him for all the years after the others left. A constant presence, always happy to see him, always reassuring in ways that dad and even Pogo weren’t. That night he buries her next to the others while Five watches with Luther’s jacket tucked around him. He tells him later that his plant’s name is Ben and Five actually smiles.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>They don’t talk about it or agree on it but they both know they can’t stay. After a couple days all the food that can be scavenged from the nearest stores and bodegas is gone and they need to move if they’re going to find more. Luther packs up the tools he’s found, what clothes of his survived. Five still hasn’t asked about his body and Luther hates that he’s so mature at such a young age that he can tell Luther doesn’t want to talk about it. Every day he looks at Five and feels so old, realizes so much about their childhood that he hadn’t until now.</p>
<p>They also don’t say anything when they get to what would have been the end of the block, the ruins of the house getting further away, and they both turn and for a long moment they’re quiet. There’s no way to know what’s going to happen, if they’ll ever come back here again. Ever get a chance to lay flowers on the graves.</p>
<p>Luther makes himself start walking, his long legs putting distance between him and Five. He calls out teasingly, “I’m gonna leave you behind!”</p>
<p>Five makes an indignant noise and scrambles to catch up, his feet slapping the pavement as he calls Luther a jackass.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“I’m sure I can get us back,” Five mumbles, one of Luther’s notebooks across his knees, a barely functioning Sharpie in his hand, scrawling equations on the pages.</p>
<p>Luther doesn’t know exactly where Five wants to get back to but he trusts him to figure it out. Luther knows his math but time travel never figured into this formulas. He hasn’t asked Five why he hasn’t seen him use his spatial jumps since he’s been around, he used to do them constantly even if it was only to get down the hallway faster. With how frustrated he’s been Luther can only assume something’s wrong. Lots of things are wrong though, add it to the list.</p>
<p>“Alright, bedtime,” Luther says, throwing one of his heavier shirts over Five’s head. Five sputters as he throws it off.</p>
<p>“You’re always staying up,” he says, angrily shuffling the notebook around as he maneuvers the giant shirt. “I can watch the fire just fine too you know.”</p>
<p>Luther tilts his head like he’s pretending to consider it. “Nope,” he says brightly. Five’s face scrunches even more in annoyance. He settles back against the remains of a shelf from the store they’re camping in, challenging Luther without a word. Luther pointedly settles back against the opposite shelf which only makes Five scowl deeper.</p>
<p>He makes it a half hour at most before his head drops forward, chin against his chest, dead asleep. Luther shakes his head at him with a smile. He looks up to the quarter moon – must be the 26<sup>th</sup> of April if his calendars were right (he knows they were) – and thinks about the footprints he left up there. About the years spent staring down at the Earth and telling himself he was happy; happy to do the mission, happy to help, happy to do what dad wanted him to do. But in the end, if this was going to happen, what was he actually helping?</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>He takes a step over a twisted bicycle and suddenly he’s waking up to Five shaking his shoulder, his voice calling his name. Luther blinks up at the blank gray sky. “What happened?”</p>
<p>“You idiot,” Five says, voice tight, eyes watery, “you passed out.” His fingers are clutching Luther’s shirt like he’s afraid to let go.</p>
<p>Fuck, Luther doesn’t want him to be afraid. He tries to push himself up but his head swims and he lands back on his elbows. “I’m fine,” he lies.</p>
<p>Five’s face is red and he’s frowning but he can’t hide the worry in his eyes. “You haven’t been eating! You passed out cause you’re starving you jackass!”</p>
<p>He has been giving Five the majority share of the food, only taking enough to keep himself going – which apparently hasn’t worked. He tries again and manages to sit up, takes a couple deep breaths. Five’s let go of his arm but is still scowling at him. He swipes at his cheek. Luther’s chest aches.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he says. “I won’t do it again.” Five glares harder. “I promise.”</p>
<p>That night Five watches him pointedly as they eat through several cans of green beans they found in someone’s basement, opened with one of Diego’s old knives. Luther gives a couple of annoyed sighs but is secretly grateful for the chance to eat somewhat of his fill for once.</p>
<p>“So how’d it happen?” Five asks, setting aside his second empty can and propping his chin up on one hand, giving a vague gesture in Luther’s direction with the other.</p>
<p>Oh. He should have known this conversation would follow what happened earlier. He stares at the ground for a long moment, then closes his eyes and lets out a heavy breath. He tells Five all about the mission that nearly killed him, that he was alone because everyone else had left and he’d made a mistake and that dad only did it to save his life. But then he keeps talking. He isn’t sure he means to but it all comes tumbling out anyway. He tells Five about waking up not knowing his own body, how he never left the house after that, about the empty years before dad sent him to the moon.</p>
<p>It’s only now, in the shadow of the end of the world, that he can start to admit it, start to unravel that thread that’s been tugging at the back of his mind for four years: dad sent him away because he couldn’t stand the sight of him. Couldn’t stand that Luther had screwed up, again.</p>
<p>“You didn’t screw up though,” Five says, “You had to do the mission yourself?”</p>
<p>Luther hesitates. He should stop talking, wave it all off. Shouldn’t have put this kind of thing on a 13 year old kid. But instead he nods.</p>
<p>“That’s bullshit,” Five says. “The others…they should have helped.”</p>
<p>Luther shakes his head, he knows better. “No, they had their own lives Five.”</p>
<p>Five doesn’t seem to like this answer but stays quiet. When he left they were still a team, still depended on and trusted each other to come through in a fight. And that had only been a couple weeks ago for him. Luther doesn’t know how to explain the difference all those years made, he’s only barely now understanding them himself.</p>
<p>“He shouldn’t have done that though,” Five says, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “Dad, I mean. You didn’t get a say in it.”</p>
<p>Luther wants to say ‘but he saved my life, it was the only way’, but he can’t. All he manages is, “Yeah.”</p>
<p>Five stares at his knees, shuffles his feet in the inch of ash on the floor and in a small voice says, “I’m glad you’re alive though.”</p>
<p>Luther resolves then to do whatever it takes to keep them both alive. Even if there isn’t an answer, isn’t a way to get them back to before this all happened, he needs to keep going for Five’s sake.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>They go west and as the weeks pass by into summer and it gets warmer – for as much as that means with the sun still partially shuttered behind a sky full of dust. Every city is in ruins, every road desolate, they don’t ever find more survivors. But there’s signs of life here and there, weeds determined to keep growing, bugs resilient enough to keep living. (Ben the plant is still alive and even if he is just a particularly strong plant they both start to look at him with hope.) Luther tells Five one day that he hasn’t found anything in his scavenging and convinces him they’ll probably have to resort to eating cockroaches. As soon as Five bites down on one with a disgusted gag Luther holds up a can of peas and Five pummels him with weak fists as Luther laughs.</p>
<p>They find books, thank God. They’re not usually the kind of stuff they grew up with, the kinds of books Reginald Hargreeves would approve of. There’s airport ready thrillers and cheesy dime store novellas, young adult books about vampires and girls having crushes; but they read all of them. They’ll read one each and then trade, though Luther likes the mystery and sci-fi novels more and Five proves to have a predilection for Westerns, of all things.</p>
<p>There’s a rare classic among them and Five reads <span class="u">Oliver Twist</span> and <span class="u">The Count of Monte Cristo</span> out loud while they walk. <span class="u">Treasure Island</span> ends up being a favorite and they both read it three times in one month. They can’t keep all of them, they can only carry so much for so long, but they amass a tiny library of favorites in the back of the cart they’ve picked up along the way.</p>
<p>Otherwise they only keep the essentials: tools, clothes, whatever hygiene necessities they come across. Five doesn’t question whenever Luther spends an evening shaving and cutting his hair in a mirror fragment and Luther supposes he’s smart enough to understand why and is thankful he never asks. He makes Five comb his hair every couple of days and he grumbles about it the whole time. </p>
<p>The one thing Luther misses the most – besides his family, home, and a functioning society – is music. He’d had a small catalogue programmed into the capsule’s memory banks and even though it couldn’t compare to the sound of real vinyl it kept him sane all those years. Whenever they do find intact records or CDs in the wasteland they can’t ever find a player that works.</p>
<p>He doesn’t have a great singing voice, and Five tells him so constantly, but he tries his best with all the songs he can remember. For all his complaining Five will tell him – nonchalantly as if he doesn’t actually care – to sing this or that song that he won’t admit to liking.</p>
<p>They sleep in whatever run down building offers the best shelter most nights unless they find themselves on a stretch of road where there’s nothing to see for miles and miles and they camp out under the sky that’s too dark to see any stars. Luther thinks sometimes of what it must have looked like, remembers pictures from books and magazines of middle America where the fields stretched out green and wild, and wishes he’d stepped out of that house more than he did when it all actually existed. Thinks of what it may have been like to take his brothers and sisters out on the road to see the world when the world was still here.</p>
<p>“We’ll get back to them,” Five says sometimes when it’s late and the fire’s burning low as he stares into it. “I just have to figure out how.”</p>
<p>Luther believes him, he just has to keep him alive til then.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>They spend their birthday in California. It should probably be warmer than it is but it’ll be years before the ash clears. Luther’s chest hurts daily from breathing it in. He ties some string into a bow on the copy of <span class="u">Treasure Island</span> and calls it a present and Five groans and rolls his eyes but holds it tight for the rest of the day. His real gift is a jacket Luther found the other day that’s too big for Five right now but it’s thick and the lining is soft. Five’s quiet as he puts it on, looks at how it covers his hands.</p>
<p>“I didn’t get you anything.”</p>
<p>“You’re fourteen, you don’t have any money,” Luther says. Five purses his lips in that way that Luther’s learned means he really wish he didn’t find something as funny as he does.</p>
<p>Six days later Five hands him a CD player and the battery symbol is still half full. The CD in it is the only one they have and the headphones are broken in half but Luther definitely sheds a tear or two listening to Bruce Springsteen’s <em>Darkness on the Edge of Town</em>. He insists Five listen to the last couple plays before the battery dies.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“You’re gonna get hurt!” Luther calls up to Five as he walks along a broken wall 12 feet up. It’s the most intact structure they’ve found so far and it’s practically a tourist attraction for them.</p>
<p>“I’m fine!” Five snaps back, “There might be something in here!” He teeters precariously towards what must be an apartment of sorts. It’s not a bad idea in that if it’s still standing there’s a good chance there’s something worthwhile that survived inside, it’s a bad idea because of the high wire act Five has to pull off to get to it.</p>
<p>He’s all bravado and confidence now in a way that reminds Luther of when he was 14. Strange that it took the apocalypse and his long lost brother appearing out of nowhere for Luther to get introspective.</p>
<p>“Five get down!”</p>
<p>Five’s eye roll is so exaggerated Luther can see it from the ground. He takes another step forward, steadies himself and swings the other foot around. The boots he’s wearing are sturdy but too big for him.</p>
<p>Luther gets a flash of panic bright and sharp when Five wavers, when his arms windmill frantically as a brick under his foot crumbles. Five isn’t allowed to die. He’s not allowed to leave Luther alone, he’s the only thing keeping him going. If Luther dies…well, Five can fix it, can’t he?</p>
<p>In an alternate version of the world Five hits the ground and breaks his left arm and 2 ribs; it takes months of agonizing pain to heal. In this world Luther catches him.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>They do talk about their past, about their family. It always comes where they talk about them almost endlessly for a couple days – rehashing the same old stories over and over again when they run out new ones. Five wants to hear ones from the years he was missing and before everyone left, when they were still all together, and Luther will tell the best ones he can think of but eventually Five will get sullen and jealous and Luther will stop. After a while they’ll drop it completely and not mention them again for weeks, both worn out from missing them too much.</p>
<p>But when they do talk about them they’ll remember how many times Allison got away with rumoring Diego to do her chores until he would finally run from the room with his hands over his ears anytime she opened her mouth. About how Klaus was the best at stealing cookies and brownies from the kitchen and squirreling them away except for the times he was feeling generous and they’d all crowd into his room and enjoy the ill gotten gains. About when dad found the remains of his Nobel Prize tucked hastily behind a curtain and no one would admit to it so he made all of them do 30 laps up the stairs every day for a week. They couldn’t fess up because technically it had all of their faults when a tussle between Luther and Diego got everyone involved and it turned into an all out brawl until the prize hit the ground. It’s funnier now than it had been at the time.</p>
<p>Luther will only talk about the missions if Five pesters him long enough. Even then he only gives short rundowns and without the kind of bombastic, overdone nature of the newspaper articles. Five always listens and takes it in and will nod here and there but never says much about it afterward. The day he asks Luther about the last mission with Ben Luther feels like he’s been punched in the gut. He tells him, haltingly and taking the occasional deep breath and by the end he knows he’s crying and he’s saying it was his fault and he should’ve tried harder. Five tips his head against his shoulder and says softly, “it’s not your fault. It couldn’t be.”</p>
<p>Five asks about the years afterward, what everyone was up to and Luther tells him as much as he can. That Allison was a movie star, one of the biggest in Hollywood and she was really good, Luther had seen all her stuff. Last he heard Diego was trying to be a cop but he didn’t check in with Luther. Neither did Klaus who left the house stoned out of his head. Luther felt that one too, felt the blame that he didn’t do more to be a better leader for him. He doesn’t know what happened with Vanya, she barely spoke to him in the first place.</p>
<p>They talk about Grace and Pogo, they’re about the only things Luther mentions when he talks about the years he was alone in the house. When they talk about dad it never lasts long and eventually they barely talk about him at all. Luther feels a hole in his chest when he thinks about him now, his mind a mess of emotions. He was their father, he loved them, despite everything, right? He has only time now and the more he remembers the less he’s sure.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Two years on and they’ve zig-zagged from the West down south as far as they could go and back up. They can’t get past Mexico and Luther figures there wouldn’t be a way past the Panama Canal even if they did make it that far. They’ve had to trade carts three times, Five’s notebook and stacks of papers full of equations have been dumped each time for lack of any kind of solution.</p>
<p>“Dolores?” Luther asks when Five props a one armed half mannequin in the wagon one day. “You’re going with Dolores?”</p>
<p>Five scowls at him, adjusts the mannequin and pats her shoulder as if Luther’s insulted her. “I like it.”</p>
<p>Luther gives an exaggerated scoff and puts his hands up and Five sticks his tongue out at him.</p>
<p>“Ben likes her,” Five says.</p>
<p>“He’s just being polite,” Luther says back. As if Ben the Plant could be rude. They’ve been talking to him almost as long as they’ve been talking to each other. Luther knows plenty about plants, especially the type that Ben is since growing him up there had been one of his experiments, but even he’s not sure how Ben’s made it this long. He doesn’t get much light and only receives the water they themselves can’t drink, but he’s grown six whole inches.</p>
<p>Five looks actively offended. He glances at Dolores and then back to Luther, now smug. “She says you’re ugly.”</p>
<p>Luther already knows that. He was made a freak even before the apocalypse and this whole situation hasn’t helped. Still: “Well she must have weird standards if she likes you.”</p>
<p>Five makes a noise that can only be classified as a squawk of outrage and stalks over to Luther, punching him in the arm. Luther snags his wrist and holds it up with zero effort. Five snarls and takes to kicking him instead. Luther lifts him off his feet for a second and drops him and Five scrambles not to fall on his ass as Luther turns away and whistles nonchalantly. Five launches himself at his back.</p>
<p>It’s only a minor scuffle, Five’s not trying to actually hurt him and Luther knows he can’t, so after Five gets one good smack upside his head he settles down against his back and Luther loops his arms under his legs.</p>
<p>“Can we go back to the ocean?” Five asks, chin on his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Sure,” Luther says and leans down to pick up the rope tied to the cart and hands it to Five behind him and starts walking. He doesn’t mind carrying Five once in a while. The kid’s still tiny compared to Luther (he hates to think about how he’s probably been significantly stunted because of all this) and he’s skinny and even though Luther’s hardly in peak shape it doesn’t really take much effort. The super strength makes up for a lot of that and what a strange blessing that power turned out to be.</p>
<p>Besides, he feels more like a brother now than he thinks he ever did growing up. He and the others were always competing, always vying to be the best in dad’s eyes and Luther’s place as Number One didn’t help that, sowed too much animosity between them, isolated them from each other. All it did was run everyone out of the house and left him alone. Despite their situation Luther feels like he’s gaining some of those years back with every petty squabble and piggyback ride with Five.</p>
<p>Five hums sleepily on his shoulder, “Sing the one about Major Tom. I don’t think Dolores has heard it.”</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“We don’t split up!” Five yells at him, eyes sharp and angry over his scarf.</p>
<p>He’s right, they don’t, they haven’t yet in three years. But there’s no food in the basement of this office building and it’s been six days and Luther can’t let them go any longer without, even with a blizzard outside.</p>
<p>“I know Five, but we don’t have a choice,” Luther tells him, trying to keep his voice firm. He’s older, he’s supposed to take care of him. “I’ll only be gone a little while.”</p>
<p>Five crosses his arms over his chest, glaring as best he can even though he can barely stand. But the hunger must win out cause he says, “You better fucking come back.”</p>
<p>Luther puts his hands on his shoulders and leans down to look him in the eye, “I promise.”</p>
<p>It’s bitterly cold out and as covered up as he is and for all that his body can withstand he can feel the bite of it in his fingers and on his ears and nose. The landscape is blindingly white and he can barely see six feet in front of him but he can make out foundations of buildings that aren’t there anymore and the ones he can get into offer a respite from the wind at least even if there’s nothing to find inside.</p>
<p>After what must be three or four hours he stumbles across the meager remains of some convenience store. There’s ramen noodles and a couple cans of soup and even peanut butter. He shoves all of it in his bag and he feels triumphant. He’d hauled rocks and rubble out behind him as he walked now he just needs to follow them back.</p>
<p>He slips about halfway there, a staircase leading down too covered by snow to see the ice underneath. He hits the ground hard enough to get the wind knocked out him. Been a while since that’s happened. He catches his breath, covers his face with his scarf and tries to stand after a couple minutes, but his leg gives out on him with a sharp shock of pain. He hobbles over to the stairs and sits down.</p>
<p>Longer still he can barely remember the last time he twisted his ankle – once, he thinks, after a long training session when he was 15 and only then did dad let him leave. He feels like an idiot, the one thing he’s supposed to be good at, the one thing they’ve been depending on to get through this and he fucks up his leg on a patch of ice. He puts his head in his hands for a long while.</p>
<p>He has to get back. He has a bag full of food and his brother’s waiting for him, he can’t stay here. When he stands and tries to put weight on his ankle it twinges with pain but he makes himself walk on it the best he can. It takes ages to get even a block and his body’s already too tired and too hungry and he doesn’t even really feel the cold anymore and his mind’s telling him how nice it would be to just lay down on the ground right now…</p>
<p>He doesn’t realize he’s slipped down to his knees until a sharp slap lands across his face. He blinks wildly and finds Five with his scarf pulled down just so he can scowl at him.</p>
<p>“We don’t split up!” he shouts over the wind, “We don’t split up anymore!”</p>
<p>Luther gives a weak nod and Five flings his arms around his neck. It’s only a brief moment and then he’s tugging Luther up and wrapping his hand in Luther’s frozen one and they set off slowly towards the building where Ben and Dolores are waiting for them.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“Shitty way to spend a birthday,” Five grumbles as he shivers under two of Luther’s shirts and a threadbare blanket they’ve found. “Fucking storm.”</p>
<p>Luther agrees. He thinks it was a hurricane all the way down in the Keys made more powerful by the still tumultuous cold fronts across the planet. Five’s burning up, coughing even more than usual and sniffling into his scarf. In a world of very little good fortune they’d stumbled across a shelter in a backyard and are holed up against the rain outside. There’s even a decent amount of food on the shelves.</p>
<p>“Well,” Luther says, settling down across from him, “I couldn’t afford a cake this year, but-” he reaches behind him and pulls out a bottle of whiskey and brandishes it over the flame of the small charcoal grill.</p>
<p>Five’s eyes get big as he looks at it. “It’s still good?”</p>
<p>“Alcohol doesn’t go bad. I think,” Luther’s pretty sure it doesn’t. He’s never really drank in his life except for once when he and Diego shared a rare moment of geniality and had snuck sips from their dad’s brandy and nearly threw up all over the rug. Five really shouldn’t be having any of it now, it won’t help his cold at all, but it’s his 21<sup>st</sup> birthday, they deserve a little bit of levity.</p>
<p>Luther pours some into two tin cups and hands one over. Five sniffs it and takes a second to decide he doesn’t hate it. They toast and take a drink.</p>
<p>There’s a pause as they both experience it and then they say in near unison: “Ew.”</p>
<p>Luther looks into his cup and wonders how the hell dad drank this stuff. “Maybe it’s an acquired taste?”</p>
<p>Five stares down his cup and then tentatively takes another sip and blanches again. Luther laughs at him. “You don’t have to drink it.”</p>
<p>Five pulls it closer to him, “I’m gonna try and acquire a taste.” Luther laughs again but when Five attempts another drink he takes another of his own. Still bad, but he’s not going to let his little brother outdrink him.</p>
<p>It doesn’t take long for them to get tipsy even if Luther is still twice his size. Five reads <span class="u">Treasure Island</span> out loud, replacing names and nouns with swear words and they giggle like kids. Five relays a story Dolores tells him about the cheekiest male mannequin she ever knew until he lost his head (somewhere along the way they’d settled into Five speaking for her and Luther speaking for Ben). They polish off a jar of peanut butter each and laugh at each other when they can’t speak from it sticking to the roofs of their mouths.</p>
<p>“I bet,” Five says then hiccups, “I bet we could’ve done this with the others. I bet it would’ve been fun.”</p>
<p>Luther doesn’t agree right away. Five’s view of their family has become rose tinted and fond and Luther doesn’t blame him. It’s kinder that way, it’s nice to have something like that to hold onto and Luther doesn’t want to take that away, but he remembers all of it too well, had more years to let it sink in while he sat lonely in that house and on the moon. They weren’t a functional family, they were never allowed to be close and then they chose not to be. But if they get back, if Five can figure it out and Luther can keep him alive long enough, maybe they can fix that.</p>
<p>“I’m sure they would,” he says with a smile, throws back the rest of his drink as Five burrows into his blankets and starts to nod off.</p>
<p>Five doesn’t get over his cold for another week but then it’s Luther’s turn and they end up spending almost a month in that bunker feverish and dizzy, but even then it’s still one of the best times they have in the apocalypse.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>“Luther! It’s Vanya, look!” Five holds up a book and indeed, there’s their sister on the cover. Luther knew she had written a book but he’d never been able to bring himself to read it, too afraid of finding out mistakes he doesn’t even remember making. But Five had been closest with her growing up and he drops down right there to read it. Lets Luther have it after him.</p>
<p>He gets to the part where Vanya says that it had been him and dad that let Ben die and he gets so physically ill he loses what little food is in his stomach. He hands the book back to Five and lets him keep it in the wagon but he never finishes reading it and Five doesn’t bring it up much.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>When Five’s 26 it means he’s spent half his life in the wasteland. Luther’s heart breaks to think about it.</p>
<p>He’s 43 and he’s not sure how long he’s going to be able to do this. Although he’s not bad off considering he’s been living on little more than rice and dried beans for 13 years and has walked from one end of the country to the other multiple times, he’s still afraid of the day that he gets too old for Five and he’ll leave him alone too soon. Five’s an adult now, Luther knows he’s plenty capable, only he’s been alone before and he knows how badly it aches.</p>
<p>But the air’s getting cleaner, the ash is settling and the sun’s coming in brighter all the time. On really clear nights they can just make out stars and Luther teaches him all the constellations and planets and every little thing he knows about space, which is a lot. Ben the Plant’s still growing, amazingly and bafflingly. They joke that he’ll live longer than either of them or even Dolores. Five keeps up with his equations and even though he’ll get so violently frustrated with them that he’ll toss whole notebooks in the fire he tries again the next day and the next.</p>
<p>“I know exactly what I did wrong thank you,” Five snipes at Dolores, scribbling out something on the page in front of him.</p>
<p>“Didn’t carry the one?” Luther asks as he cleans off his goggles with a rag.</p>
<p>Five shoots him a snide look and then turns sharply to Delores. “Don’t encourage him.”</p>
<p>Luther purses his lips and tilts his head towards Ben. “What’s that Ben?” he asks in an airy voice, “When are they getting married? Well I don’t think Five’s even popped the question.”</p>
<p>Five whips around on him with a murderous glare and his hands in fists. “Ben didn’t say that, shut up.”</p>
<p>Luther shrugs, “Sure sounded like he said it. Oh and he said Dolores’s sequin shirt would be perfect for a wedding.”</p>
<p>Five’s not much bigger than he was a teenager but that doesn’t ever seem to stop him from squaring up on Luther and seeing if this will be the time a punch on the arm will actually hurt him.</p>
<p>“Ouch,” Luther jokes, “you’re such an angry little guy.”</p>
<p>Five’s eyes practically flash red. He attempts an uppercut that Luther ducks. He’s taught Five how to fight a little bit, but not better than him. He scoops him up into a bear hug and Five seethes as his legs kick in the air.</p>
<p>“You’re old,” he snarls, “you’re going to start shrinking.”</p>
<p>“Pretty sure I’ll still be taller than you,” Luther says confidently. “Even if I live to be 100.”</p>
<p>There’s a flash of blue light and suddenly Luther’s holding empty air and Five hits him in the one vulnerable place he has.</p>
<p>He’s too busy rolling on the ground and heaving to process that Five’s able to use his jumps again.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>He can’t do them often and never that far. Five figured the energy it took to jump so far into the future and then the lack of having enough to eat and drink for so long made it too hard, so the fact that he can do them at all now is a very good sign. The problem is he’ll push himself too much and there’s too many times he’s laid up for two or more days just recovering. Luther admonishes him only once and he reminds himself too much of their father to ever do it again.</p>
<p>Five’s smart, Five’s capable, and he did everything Reginald said he couldn’t do. Luther’s not going to be one to hold him back. Even when several times a mismanaged jump ends with a sprained wrist or bruised elbow, ends with him landing too hard on concrete or even one time a tangle of rebar. Another time he underestimates the distance between two walls and hits his head so hard he knocks himself unconscious. Luther has a moment of utter breathless fear that he’s not going to wake up but Five does open his eyes and mutters, “Goddamn it.”</p>
<p>They continue rotating around the country, avoiding the bad weather kicked up by superstorms and droughts. Their book collection only grows little by little, they still can’t keep more than they can carry. It’s long since past when any kind of battery or generator would still be functional but they’ve become the most expert experts on camping that have ever lived. They don’t keep watch anymore, stopped years ago, they’ve never once seen another living person or animal.</p>
<p>Sometimes Luther looks up and the view of the moon hits him in just the right way that he can’t drag himself back from the edge and he falls headlong into a miserable cloud of thoughts. He’d lost four years of his life up there but then again he’d lost so many years down on Earth too. He’d had dark thoughts, parts of his mind that had always lingered there that he tried to ignore took up more space, whispers got louder. Ones that told him he was going to keep failing, that he was alone and no one missed him. What would it matter? Even now…</p>
<p>“You’re not on the moon anymore old man,” Five always says and shoves his shoulder. Luther snaps out of it and is reminded why he’s sticking around.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Five’s 32 but he looks like a kid when he drags Luther with him through what must have used to been a school.</p>
<p>“What is so important Five? I can walk on my own-,” He stops short. In a little plot of land, sectioned off by wood beams so many years ago, are flowers. Real, honest flowers. Five looks at him with a slap happy grin on his face.</p>
<p>They carefully dig up half of them, put them in mostly unbroken containers. It’ll take more water than they’d like to keep them alive long enough but it’s worth it. They tuck them in the cart next to Ben. (“Of course Ben likes them.”) Luther has a map full of pen marks of places they’ve been with stars over places that have been good to them. He draws a little flower next to the name of the town.</p>
<p>They’re not anywhere close and it’s a long haul to get back to that side of the country but they make it before winter hits. He knows they’ve been bracing themselves as they get closer but they’re both unsteady as they approach the ruins of the mansion. It’s been 19 years and besides a couple things having gotten blown over it looks exactly the same.</p>
<p>It could technically be called a ceremony; they’re solemn as Five crouches down next to each headstone and lays down a sprig of purple flowers. There’s two that don’t have graves with the names ‘Vanya’ and ‘Pogo’ on them and Five also puts some on the statue of Ben that still lies in the courtyard.</p>
<p>“Did you want to put one down for dad?” he asks Luther.</p>
<p>Luther thinks about it. Looks down at his clasped hands, at the thick fingers covered with coarse hair that don’t come from the same creature he’s supposed to be. “Fuck it.” Five lets out a surprise burst of laughter.</p>
<p>19 years is plenty long enough to forgive Reginald Hargreeves and also long enough for Luther to decide not to.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>He’s 57 when he falls again except this time it’s a hole in a floor and he hits his head, tears up his whole left side and breaks a couple ribs.</p>
<p>“I know how to treat a concussion,” Five grumbles at Ben the Plant.</p>
<p>“Be nice, he’s just trying to help,” Luther says though he sounds groggy and weak. Five huffs.</p>
<p>It’s cold outside. An earthquake big enough to feel 500 miles away cracked open the ground on their route and they had to divert east again and fall’s coming in over them quick. For all that the air’s cleared over the years cold is still pretty fucking cold on this Earth. Luther hates that it wasn’t even the earthquake’s fault he fell.</p>
<p>He drifts off staring through a hole in the ceiling that was once someone’s kitchen floor, up at the gray sky. Just getting old, old man.</p>
<p>“Wake up,” Five snaps his fingers in his face.</p>
<p>“I’m awake jeez,” Luther says and tries to turn and frown at him but his side protests. He’s scrapped off a layer of skin all down his arm and shoulder and the outside of his leg. The concussion is annoying but it’ll be this that could kill him. Broken bones can mend and bruises and sprains heal, but they don’t have the right supplies to fight a really bad infection.</p>
<p>“If I wanted you to sleep I’d read you some of your own poetry,” it’s a weak jab but Five’s just anxious and trying to hide it. Luther was very genuinely surprised when Five turned out to be supportive of his amateur poetic efforts that he’d only admitted to when they’d found another bottle of alcohol. He ‘s very good at giving notes.</p>
<p>Five wraps a wet rag around the last bit of Luther’s arm that isn’t already covered and Luther hisses from the how hot it is – the only way to sterilize anything is to boil it. Five calls him a baby. Well the good thing is maybe some new scars will cover up the old ones.</p>
<p>He’d had to admit that to Five too because Five is the kind of person that can stand to delay answers but the day would come that he’d ask point blank, ‘how?’. How’d he get the scars? And Luther had to tell him because there’s literally nothing they haven’t told each other by now. Five stayed quiet and when Luther was done he said, “You’re not gonna do that to yourself anymore.” An order. Luther hadn’t since he’d been back on Earth but promised anyway. All his promises fell under the big umbrella (ahem) of Luther’s first promise: stay alive for Five’s sake.</p>
<p>“You know, Ben’s good company,” he says and he feels lightheaded as he turns back to the ceiling, “and you have Dolores.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t have to look to know Five’s glaring at him, mouth a tight line. “Knock it off.”</p>
<p>“Seriously Five,” Luther continues, feeling oddly at peace with what he has to say, “You’re smart, you know what you’re doing, just keep it up. If I don’t-”</p>
<p>“Knock it the fuck off,” Five says sharply. “Don’t get goddamn maudlin on me. You survived supervillains when you were 14.”</p>
<p>He did, but he was young. Healed quicker, moved faster. He has to be reasonable, his powers have kept him going better than a normal person would up until now – and ok it would have been a worse fall for anyone else – but someday they’ll start to fail him.</p>
<p>As if he can read his mind (and they’ve been together long enough to think it’s a fair bet he can) Five mutters, “You’re the strong one Spaceboy, you can handle this.” He only calls him Spaceboy when he’s being begrudgingly affectionate.</p>
<p>Luther gives a huff of laughter. “Alright, The Boy.” Five snorts at his own nickname. Wasn’t around long enough to get a new one unfortunately.</p>
<p>“Now shut up cause we left off on chapter four,” Five says as he opens his ragged copy of <span class="u">Slaughterhouse Five</span>. He’s read it, as has Luther, dozens of times so they both know what’s going to happen, but it had quickly became one of Five’s favorites and he only goes so long without rereading it.</p>
<p>Luther listens to him and Five berates him with questions every couple pages and says whatever’s on his mind to keep him awake. But Luther’s mind wanders. It wouldn’t be so bad if he went now, he guesses. It wouldn’t be good, the thought of leaving Five alone still makes his heart seize up, but how much longer can it be before he figures out how to get back and fix all this?</p>
<p>Klaus saw ghosts and Luther’s thought about that a fair amount since this all happened. He’s wondered from time to time if all the while the ghosts of their brothers and sisters have been following them around, keeping an eye on them. Sometimes it’s a comforting thought, other times it’s depressing. Diego would be judging everything they did, ‘he’s starting that fire all wrong’, Allison would be rolling her eyes at Diego and encouraging them when they did something right. Klaus would be complimenting Dolores’s fashion and pretending to sleep when they read the boring books out loud. Ben, the real one, would be there too wouldn’t he? He’d be on  Allison’s other side and worrying every time they did something dangerous. Luther isn’t sure if Vanya would care about him or if she’d only be sticking around to keep an eye on Five. The thought makes him sad. He tried Vanya, he did. Promise.</p>
<p>Luther could watch over Five from the other side, he would stick around for as long as it took until Five went back. Then he could go on to be another ghost wandering the Earth with all the others.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>He doesn’t die. It takes weeks and a lot of Five’s grousing and fussing but the wounds don’t get infected and his ribs mend. Five tells him he’s not allowed to be so goddamn depressing again.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Five breaks his leg at 46 and gets through it by sheer orneriness alone. Luther’s glad there aren’t any kids left that old man Five can yell at for stepping on his lawn.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Year after year they keep moving, they stay alive. Even though it’s all they’ve known for so long sometimes it still surprises Luther that they’ve made it so far. What a bizarre twist of fate, what an impossible thing to imagine and yet this is their life. Every October 1<sup>st</sup> – he’s been very good this whole time about keeping track of the days by the moon – they get older and every day they wake up.</p>
<p>It has to end at some point. Someday he’s not going to wake up, or he’ll really hurt himself too bad, someday he’ll just be too old.  Or maybe something might happen to Five, and then Luther won’t have a reason to stay. Or maybe ‘the end’ won’t actually be the end. Five still works on his math every day.</p>
<p>And so they go on.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The day comes that Ben the Plant finally loses the fight. 44 years is a long time for a plant to survive in the wasteland but despite all their joking of him living forever they knew it had to happen eventually. There’s no one to posture for but they still try and pull off ‘macho and stoic’ when they bury him in the plot of flowers they’d found forever ago. It’s gotten quite a bit bigger and it actually feels kind of hopeful.</p>
<p>Luther puts a hand on Five’s shoulder when he notices he’s crying silently. Five glances over at him and calls him a baby cause Luther’s crying too.</p>
<p>“It’s okay little guy,” Luther says and Five gives an aggravated sigh. “Let it out.”</p>
<p>“Says the oldest man in the world,” Five responds. How he thinks that’s an insult when it’s true is hilarious. Ben would be rolling his eyes at them if he weren’t dead, and a plant.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>He’s 71 years old when he hears a voice for the first time in decades that isn’t Five’s.</p>
<p>The woman is done up to the nines and smiling like she’s meeting people at a cocktail party. Luther’s first thought isn’t that she’s a hallucination because he can’t imagine the part of his brain that would come up with someone like her.</p>
<p>“Who the hell are you?” Five asks, looking as uneasy and suspicious as he had when Luther had found him all those years ago.</p>
<p>“I’m here to help!” the woman chirps, “And I have an offer to make. For you, specifically.”</p>
<p>Luther’s subconsciously stepped in front of Five, and he was right, he’s still a lot taller than him even at this age. Five looks up at him and then over to the woman. “Anywhere I go, he goes.”</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>It’s not Luther’s ideal. He never in a million years would have guessed that the fastest way out of the apocalypse was working for a shady organization that assassinated people throughout history. Five doesn’t love it either, but Five’s different, Five has always been shrewder, more calculating. It’s an exit door, but maybe he can find another behind this one.</p>
<p>And honestly, the first time he sleeps in a real bed and eats a meal that actually makes him feel really, truly full his morals take a short vacation. The Commission will feed, house and clothe them in exchange for Five’s service and Luther tells himself that if Five’s okay with it, than he supposes he’ll be too.</p>
<p>The first night they get two different hotel rooms and it takes all of 20 minutes for Five to come bursting through his door to throw his pillow on the sofa on the other side of the room.</p>
<p>“We don’t split up,” he mutters. Thank God cause Luther was sure he was about to have a heart attack.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The Commission learns quickly that they’re a package deal. They want Five to do their dirty work but he won’t do it without Luther at his back. They train Five and he takes to it all quickly and Luther’s stomach roils at the thought of the little brother he’s protected for 41 years becoming a killer.</p>
<p>“I can handle it, we just need to hold out a little longer,” Five tells him. He’ll wait, he’s waited this long.</p>
<p>Everyone knows them as a duo, Number Five and Space (he’s hardly a ‘boy’ anymore; there’d been a short couple days where some tried to coin the nickname ‘King Kong’ for him but that was shut down very fast). Five holds the gun and Space clears the room. Now that they can eat whenever they want, whatever they want, and they can sleep without freezing and breathe without coughing up soot Luther does feel more powerful. When before his strength was just keeping him alive now he feels like it’s really his again. And he makes sure everyone knows it, admittedly showing off by crushing the odd typewriter and tossing around the occasional desk if Five decides he needs it for intimidation purposes.</p>
<p>And Five’s jumps get stronger. He’d never gotten back to the level he used to be but now he does it like he’s a kid again. Between that and his increasingly impressive kill record he and Luther become the kind of agents that get whispered about between new recruits. Especially impressive when you’re in your late 50’s and early 70’s.</p>
<p>They go wherever the job takes them, across continents and time periods. They see the world as a real place again, full of people and animals and plants and <em>life </em>again. That doesn’t stop being both astounding and overwhelming for them for a long time. They’ve had no one but each other and a landscape of constant bleak emptiness for so long. Just talking to someone, ordering food or hailing a taxi or buying books in a store, feels like some heady dream and Luther can’t shake the vague fear that one day he’s going to open his eyes and be right back in that emptiness.</p>
<p>In front of everyone else, especially Commission employees, Five is hard edged and curt, never gives more than he needs to, but then he’ll still turn around and tell Luther how he feels about the eggs he had at breakfast, what Dolores would say about the dress The Handler was wearing that day, how he too thinks sometimes he’ll wake up in the wasteland again. Luther’s afraid all the time that he’s going to lose Five – not to some accident or sickness or injury this time but to this job. It’s twisted and cruel and he can see how it’s eating away at Five, but he still talks to Luther like the boy who’s been at his side all these years, still calls him a jackass when he annoys him.</p>
<p>And he keeps telling Luther that he’s getting close to figuring it out, that he’s almost got the right string of numbers that’ll take them back to a time where they can stop the apocalypse, save their family. Just a little longer, they just have to do this a little longer. Luther believes him, and he’s going to keep doing what he’s always done: keep Five alive til then.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Luther takes a bullet to the shoulder three years in. Five screams himself hoarse cause it was meant for him. The Commission patches Luther up nearly good as new but Five gets edgier, gets angrier (if that’s possible) but this time he’s angry at Luther.</p>
<p>Luther can only stand a couple days of it until he wants to tear his own skin open because Five isn’t saying something and he’s doing a shitty job of hiding it because Luther knows him too damn well. Five doesn’t say as much, gives clipped, irritated answers, doesn’t even react when Luther calls him ‘little guy’.</p>
<p>“What’s wrong?” he finally asks point blank.</p>
<p>Five fidgets in his chair, fusses with the notebook in his hands. Luther waits. When he does look at him he looks sad. He hasn’t looked like that in a long while.</p>
<p>“I made a mistake,” he says with a sigh, drops his notebook on the diner table. “I can’t…” he stares at his pancakes, shakes his head. “I can’t take you with me.”</p>
<p>Luther feels his face scrunch with confusion. “On the next job?”</p>
<p>“Back in time,” Five snaps. He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes for a second. “I can’t take you with me if I go back to the past.”</p>
<p>Huh. “Why?”</p>
<p>Five makes another frustrated noise but Luther knows this time it’s at himself. “You’re already there. In that timeline I’m not but you are. If you go back there will be two of you and…”</p>
<p>Luther’s spent the last several decades listening to Five explain every little detail of time travel as he understands it, he doesn’t need him to now for him to catch on. You can’t be one person in two places. They know from the Commission’s training that two versions of the same person can’t exist together before they both end up unraveling at the seams. Best case scenario only one of them gets torn down to their atoms, worst case is they both do.</p>
<p>If he goes back with Five he might not make it a whole day.</p>
<p>He smiles. Five looks at him completely bewildered.</p>
<p>“Keep working on it,” Luther says, and he’s smiling because he means it. “If I can’t come-” he shrugs, “It’ll be worth it if you save our family.” His still healing shoulder aches and he ignores it.</p>
<p>When Five speaks he sounds desperate and a little frantic. “You’ll be on the moon, what if you can’t get back in time? Or I can’t reach you, or something goes wrong? What if I can’t stop it?”</p>
<p>“You’ll figure it out Five,” Luther says, and he doesn’t think he’s ever sounded more like a big brother, even when he’s teasing him. “You’re smart, and you know what to do. You’ve survived a lot.”</p>
<p>“Because of you!” Five frowns under the goofy little mustache that Luther absolutely gives him shit for. “I only made it because of you! Even if I do save you, even if you come back from the moon…” his shoulders slump and maybe it’s just because he’s Luther’s little brother but he thinks he looks so young. “You won’t be the same you.”</p>
<p>That’s true. The Luther from back then won’t be the one who’s been through the end of the world with him, the one who was hungry and thirsty and tired for so long just so they could keep putting one foot in front of the other. The one who did everything he could just to make sure they’d end up at this place having this conversation. The Luther in the past hasn’t watched the world explode into flame from 200,000 miles away, hasn’t walked through the ruins of his home, stood over his family’s graves, carried his scared little brother through the wreckage while he teased that Five’s hair made him look like an angry hedgehog.</p>
<p>Luther’s still smiling. “Be patient with me – the other me. He…he thinks he knows who he is but he doesn’t.” That Luther is scared too. He’s been on the moon, alone and cold and waiting for an answer from a father that he knows now never cared enough to give him one. And before that he’d been just as lonely only he didn’t understand that yet. “He’s going to be so happy to see you. Promise.”</p>
<p>Five looks as heartbroken as he had when Luther put Grace in her grave next to the others. That doesn’t answer the other questions, the ones about how it could all go wrong and if Five can’t save everything and Luther doesn’t get back in time. There’s a chance that that Luther does go through the apocalypse, only alone this time.</p>
<p>But the Luther who’s 74 years old and spent 41 years surviving the world after it ended with the brother sitting across from him isn’t going to take any chance away from him.</p>
<p>“Are you going to eat your pancakes?” he asks and when Five keeps looking at him like everything’s falling apart he adds, “Little guy?”</p>
<p>Five is quiet for a long moment, his mind reeling so much Luther can practically hear it. Then, with a huff and a straightening of his shoulders, he pulls his plate closer to him. “I am, old man. Just because you’re half gorilla doesn’t mean you have to eat everything in sight.” Luther laughs.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>They spend another year with the Commission. Five keeps excelling at his job and Luther stays by his side no matter how much he still hates it. Every day brings them- brings <em>Five</em> closer to figuring out an answer to that problem that’ll reunite everyone. Five talks to him the way he always has, tells him everything, but there’s a touch of sadness in his voice and Luther knows he’s thinking about how this could be the last time they ever get a chance to be together. He hears it even when he reads aloud a new book they’ve found.</p>
<p>It hurts. It’s the one thing he won’t admit to Five. It hurts to know that the day’s going to come and he’s going to be left behind. They can barely stand being on opposite sides of the building, soon Five’s going to be in a whole different timeline. Luther won’t know what to do with himself. The Commission won’t want him without Five and he’ll be a 70-something year old man who spent most of his life living on the wrong side of the end of the world with nowhere to be. He’s been two versions of the same person his whole life: one who lived within the guidelines that had been set out for him, too afraid to step outside of them, and one who had to to keep living. Only one was because of the apocalypse and the other was because of Reginald Hargreeves.</p>
<p>He thinks he knows himself now, thinks he knows who he used to be too with years of experience on his side this time, but he can’t say for sure how that version of himself will be when Five goes back. He wants to keep his promise but there’s only one thing in his world he’s scared of: that the old him won’t.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>An October 1<sup>st</sup> comes and the year doesn’t really matter because he and Five are so outside of time now who can even tell. But Luther turns 75 and Five turns 58 all the same.</p>
<p>Five barks at him to wait outside or else as he goes into a record store and comes out a couple minutes later holding two vinyls. One’s Bruce Springsteen’s <em>Darkness on the Edge of Town </em>and the other is David Bowie’s self titled album – the one with the song about  Major Tom. “I couldn’t decide between the two.”</p>
<p>Five must be getting close to the right equation if he’s getting this sentimental.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>November 22<sup>nd</sup> 1963 is warm and Luther realizes that’s typical for Texas but even four years later he still appreciates any climate not made cold by a constant cloud of dust. He doesn’t like today’s assignment – it makes his head spin and stomach hurt – but at the very least it’s nice outside.</p>
<p>Five’s jittery as they eat their breakfast, eyes darting to the notebook at his elbow, fingers tapping against the table. Something’s going to happen today. Well, something<em> else</em> is going to happen, something that’s only important to them, it’s obvious with every step Five takes. Luther tries to pretend like he’s not nervous, he’s not sure he does a great job.</p>
<p>He carries the briefcase like usual. He’s well aware that he’s not really needed in the grand scheme of The Commission’s machinations but he’s happy to be the muscle (the 75 year old muscle…) even if it just means carrying shit from point A to point B. As long as he can put himself between Five and whatever wants to get at Five then that’s all that matters.</p>
<p>Their instructions lead them to a parking lot, a fence separates them from Dealey Plaza. Luther does his usual scan of the area, checks all the blindspots and makes sure the coast is clear before he puts the briefcase down. He turns to Five.</p>
<p>Five’s standing in the middle of the parking lot, frantically thumbing through his notebook, face twisted with concentration. Luther almost doesn’t want to say anything.</p>
<p>“You ok?”</p>
<p>Five continues flipping through his notebook. “Something…something’s off, I just know it, I just know something’s wrong-”</p>
<p>They must definitely look like a conspiracy theory – a little man with a mustache violently fidgeting with a book of equations and an old man who’s over six feet tall with a 60 inch chest standing next to a plain black suitcase on the ground. Luther whips his head around again to make sure they really are alone. “Five?”</p>
<p>They both look up and over to the fence between them and the street because the clamor of the crowd gets louder. Kennedy must be in view. He could be on the horizon or 50 yards away, either way their window’s fast approaching.</p>
<p>“Five?” Luther asks again and the man looks over at him then, cogs turning in his brain.</p>
<p>“You can’t come,” he says half in a daze like he’s not really speaking to Luther, like how he sounded when he only meant for Dolores to hear him, “except…”</p>
<p>Luther feels it like a punch in the chest. Today’s the day. Today’s the day it’s all going to change. Five’s figured it out, after all this time he’s put the right numbers together, got the right answers. He’s about to go back and fix everything, and he’s going to have to leave Luther behind to do it.</p>
<p>Luther sighs, allows himself just a second before he squares his shoulders, stands to his full height and gives Five a reassuring nod. “Five, do what you have to do.”</p>
<p>He’s been preparing for this but he’s not ready for it. 45 years crawled so slow at the time so how in the <em>Hell</em> do they feel like nothing more than the second of time it takes for Five to blink from one side of this parking lot to the other? He’s done his best, he’s tried his hardest. He hopes it means something, hopes that all those years have lead to this instead of held Five back. He hopes that from the second a little 13 year old Five looked over at him across the ruins of their home and realized that it was his brother sitting there that he’s done everything as best he can. His heart aches more than it ever has.</p>
<p>But Five doesn’t seem to give a damn. Luther pointedly clears his throat and gets no reaction.</p>
<p>Suddenly Five’s a flurry of motion and he’s rushing over to the briefcase on the ground and he stares at it for a beat before throwing his arms up and kicking the thing as hard as he can. It goes skidding across the pavement. Five doesn’t even wait for it to settle before he’s furiously pacing with his nose in the notebook.</p>
<p>“Five?” Luther asks yet again only louder this time. The noise from the crowd grows beyond the fence and the sizzle of anxiety in his nerves reaches a fever pitch.</p>
<p>Five finally, finally stops and turns to him. “I got it!”</p>
<p>Of course he does, Luther feels a wash of pride through him. “I knew you could, you-”</p>
<p>“No not that!” Five shouts and Luther’s taken aback. “I mean yes that, obviously, I mean! The other thing! You!”</p>
<p>“…ok.” Luther says.</p>
<p>Five rolls his eyes so hard his head reels with it before he’s stalking over to the briefcase where’s it’s landed. “It was that….fucking Commission! That psycho Handler! I wasn’t wrong, they were!” He gives the case another kick and Luther stands stock still with his eyebrows raised waiting to find out what the hell’s going on. “Their briefcases work like that because that’s how they’re supposed to work! But if<em> I</em> do it-”</p>
<p>Five stops where he stands, closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Luther can feel something radiate from him even from 10 feet away. Something flickers in the air, something blue that wavers and grows bigger. Luther feels like a moth drawn to it and he steps forward as it gets wider, turns into a window and suddenly he’s looking back – or forward – into a different time.</p>
<p>It’s the courtyard of the house, he’d know it even now. There’s the back door, there’s his bike, there’s three people standing there that he doesn’t recognize at first. Except no wait, that’s Allison. That’s <em>Allison</em>. His nerves go electric and then only more so when he realizes the man she’s standing next to is definitely Diego and the other is definitely Klaus. Oh, he never thought he’d see them like this.</p>
<p>Then Klaus throws a fire extinguisher at him. He just barely ducks out of the way.</p>
<p>Five looks out into the portal and then to Luther. “We have to go now!”</p>
<p>Luther reels. “What are you talking about? I can’t go with you.”</p>
<p>Five balls his hands into fists like Luther’s the one being obtuse. “No, I figured it out! If we did it like The Commission does of course there’s going to be overlap, but if we do it my way-” he gestures to the portal where their three siblings continue to look bewildered, “then it’ll work!”</p>
<p>Luther can’t move his feet. “What?”</p>
<p>Five looks like he’s about to burst. “We’re not<em> visiting</em> time, we’re changing it. If you come with me now the you that exists then, the one on the moon, will simply cease to be to make up for the anomaly.”</p>
<p>The crowd cheers, there’s the sound of a gunshot and then screaming, and obviously something curious just happened but all Luther can focus on is what Five’s just told him. He’d accepted it. He knew that to save everyone he’d have to be the one left behind, the one left alone – again. It’s fine, really. He kept the one person capable of saving the world alive for 45 years, that’s all that matters. But now Five’s telling him he <em>can</em> go back.</p>
<p>And the Luther of the past will just simply…stop existing. The one who found out about the end of it all too late, the one stranded on the moon, will just not <em>be</em> anymore. That one wouldn’t remember those 45 years because they don’t exist for him. But-</p>
<p>But they’ll still always exist for Five.</p>
<p>Somehow the thing that finally comes out of his mouth is: “What about Ben?” and off of Five’s completely baffled look, “the plant?”</p>
<p>Five looks like he might just kill him. He allows for one brief second of complete aggravation before he’s muttering, “For <em>fuck’s</em> sake,” and lurching forward to wrap his hand around Luther’s wrist and throwing himself into the portal.</p>
<p>Luther feels like every part of him is being tugged in different directions at once and his head spins wildly as the blue light engulfs his vision. The world spins around him a hundred times before he’s landing hard on his back on the semi frozen ground of the courtyard of The Umbrella Academy.</p>
<p>He blinks up at the gray sky and gets a case of déjà vu so bad he almost throws up.</p>
<p>“Luther?!” the voice sounds familiar but…strange. He braces himself on his hands and pushes himself up and wow that used to be harder than it was just now. He looks down at a body he recognizes but doesn’t. Then he looks up at someone he definitely recognizes.</p>
<p>Five – a young Five, a 13 year old Five, the Five he found in the rubble – grabs at his lapels, eyes wide. “We’re alive! We’re back!” he crows, but then his eyebrows furrow and he staggers back. “You’re young.”</p>
<p>Luther <em>is</em> young, he can feel it, decades of hardship gone from the heft of his body. He looks at Five. “You’re…little…-er.”</p>
<p>Five looks down at himself, the suit he’d been wearing draped over him like a tent. “Shit.” They’re exactly the ages they were at the original end of the world.</p>
<p>“Luther?” Allison’s voice says over his shoulder.</p>
<p>“Five?!” Vanya says.</p>
<p>“Oh thank God it’s not just me,” Klaus says.</p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
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